’Except once,’said Barnes, ’when he wanted me to let him have a ox to roast whole out on the common, for the Battle of Waterloo.  I stood out against him on that.  “No, no,” says I, “I’ll joint him for ye, Mr. Harrington.  You shall have him in joints, and eat him at home";-ha! ha!’

‘Just like him!’ said Grossby, with true enjoyment of the princely disposition that had dictated the patriotic order.

‘Oh!—­there!’ Kilne emphasized, pushing out his arm across the bar, as much as to say, that in anything of such a kind, the great Mel never had a rival.

‘That “Marquis” affair changed him a bit,’ said Barnes.

‘Perhaps it did, for a time,’ said Kilne.  ’What’s in the grain, you know.  He couldn’t change.  He would be a gentleman, and nothing ‘d stop him.’

’And I shouldn’t wonder but what that young chap out in Portugal ’ll want to be one, too; though he didn’t bid fair to be so fine a man as his father.’

‘More of a scholar,’ remarked Kilne.  ’That I call his worst fault—­shilly-shallying about that young chap.  I mean his.’  Kilne stretched a finger toward the dead man’s house.  ’First, the young chap’s to be sent into the Navy; then it’s the Army; then he’s to be a judge, and sit on criminals; then he goes out to his sister in Portugal; and now there’s nothing but a tailor open to him, as I see, if we’re to get our money.’

’Ah! and he hasn’t got too much spirit to work to pay his father’s debts,’ added Barnes.  ’There’s a business there to make any man’s fortune-properly directed, I say.  But, I suppose, like father like son, he’ll becoming the Marquis, too.  He went to a gentleman’s school, and he’s had foreign training.  I don’t know what to think about it.  His sisters over there—­they were fine women.’

’Oh! a fine family, every one of ’em! and married well!’ exclaimed the publican.

‘I never had the exact rights of that “Marquis” affair,’ said Grossby; and, remembering that he had previously laughed knowingly when it was alluded to, pursued:  ’Of course I heard of it at the time, but how did he behave when he was blown upon?’

Barnes undertook to explain; but Kilne, who relished the narrative quite as well, and was readier, said:  ’Look here!  I ’ll tell you.  I had it from his own mouth one night when he wasn’t—­not quite himself.  He was coming down King William Street, where he stabled his horse, you know, and I met him.  He’d been dining out-somewhere out over Fallow field, I think it was; and he sings out to me, “Ah!  Kilne, my good fellow!” and I, wishing to be equal with him, says, “A fine night, my lord!” and he draws himself up—­he smelt of good company—­says he, “Kilne!  I’m not a lord, as you know, and you have no excuse for mistaking me for one, sir!” So I pretended I had mistaken him, and then he tucked his arm under mine, and said, “You’re no worse than your betters, Kilne.  They took me for one at Squire Uplift’s to-night, but a man who wishes